A Prelude to Penemue by Sara M. Harvey

 
    T he air reeked of burnt flesh and sulphur . A cluster of Grigori crouched beside the manor’s stone wall, taking a moment to breathe. The stones were still warm, and Mrs. Hester Sloane, Lady Regalii , could still smell sweet wine and roast boar from the dinner party so rudely disrupted. She pulled the gilt hairpins from her summer blonde hair and quickly braided it to keep it out of way.
     
    “My love—” her husband’s shadow fell across her shoulder.
     
    “ Marius, now is not the time. I have a duty. Please, stay with the others.”
     
    “The other humans .”
     
    Hester turned, rising to her feet. “Yes. The other humans. This is no place for you, husband dear. I fear for your safety and that of our sweet Charlotte . Find her and Mary in the nursery and get home. You will be safer there than here.” A shudder passed through the ground. “Go, while you are still able.”
     
    “Hester, you are not a fighter. Come with me!”
     
    “All of us are fighters, whether we are born to be warriors or not. I have a duty, my heart. Please understand. We of the Order of the Grigori are bound to protect the humans in our charge, even the Regalii . Just please, take our daughter and our servants home, I will follow when I can.” She kissed him softly on the lips and turned away, savoring the familiar brush of his moustache against her flesh.
     
    “I love you,” he called.
     
    Hester caught up with her fellows as they pressed back into the battle. Cadmus Gyony , a tall and imposing figure, led the formation. He was one of the few warriors who had been asked to the noble banquet. Regalii , Vedma , and Aldias , the sects powerful in the political structure of the Order, were not bred for the battlefield, and it made them an easy target.
     
    “ Spellcasters ,” Cadmus bellowed, “fall back. Be prepared on my mark. Healers, behind the casters—you will have a dedicated guard. Anna, protect the healers.”
     
    Anna wore a servant’s livery but was quickly yanking off her lacy cap and assembling a staff from several lengths of tempered wood bound in brass fittings she had pulled from the pockets of her long coat. “Aye, sir.” She took her position among them, Hester and the two Vedma .
     
    There were but four other Gyony taking up places at the fore, facing down the creature that hunched in the darkness. The broken bodies of stablehands and horses lay among the shattered carriages. An Insinori youth dashed out and laid down a tripod emblazoned with the intricate sigil of the engineer’s sect. She dropped the heavy knapsack she carried and made quick work of building the largest field cannon Hester had ever seen, then began intently loading it. Purple-black bolts of light hailed down around her.
     
    “Hurry up with that, forger!”
     
    “Get me some cover,” she growled. A lanky young man also dressed in livery came up beside her, drawing his longbow and sending a volley of arrows into the dark. The creature howled with displeasure.
     
    It turned toward the torchlit square and Hester saw it for the first time. The hulking, lumbering demon towered over them all. It sat up on two well-muscled haunches and shifted its massive weight toward them. The wide mouth was a tooth-filled slash that occupied the whole of what might have been a face. One large, faceted eye bulged out at them as the beast roared with dank, sulphurous breath.
     
    Hester quailed.
     
    “Step up, little noble caster. Do you heal or can you use your magic for offense?”
     
    She blinked up at an imposing woman who stood above her, silver streaking her thick black hair. “Pardon me, madame ?”
     
    “I will ask again, and I will use small words. Can you fight? Yes or no?”
     
    “I…I have never...”
     
    She sighed. “Liability, then. Learn to do something useful, or keep your pretty face out of the way, got that, princess? I have no time for spoiled Regalii brats.” She turned on her booted heel and whispered to a handful of